Figure 1 shows BOPEC ratings for Bank Holding Companies from 1988 to 2000. Three categories of bank supervisor assigned ratings are shown including Downgrades, Upgrades and No-change in ratings. The data show that the dominant rating event over this period was the no-change in rating category. This category, while relatively level for most of the 1990s, increased dramatically from 1997 to 2000 during the economic expansion because so many organizations had already achieved the highest ratings by that time. The data also show that BOPEC downgrades increased significantly during the banking crises years from 1988 to 1991, and then this rating category declined until 1997 when downgrades began to increase. Rating upgrades were relatively level from 1988 to 1991, the number of upgrades increased from 1991 to the 1993, and they declined in every year over the 19932000 period.